


Laeti Triumphantes

by Sineala



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Community: discoveredinalj, First Time, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-12
Updated: 2008-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:38:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a cold winter night, Bodie finds a new way to keep warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laeti Triumphantes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Discovered Whilst A-Carolling, the December 2008 challenge on Discovered In A LiveJournal. My prompt was "O Come All Ye Faithful." Thanks to Lysimache for general encouragement! Thanks to Slantedlight for the beta!

Sometimes Bodie dreams. It's silly to say "sometimes," of course -- everyone dreams all the time. But he rarely remembers them. With the life he's had, he's grateful for that. Living through most of it once is enough. More than enough.

Tonight he dreams he's sixteen. He's almost forgotten being sixteen. He's sixteen and cold. Freighter in the North Atlantic. It's nighttime. He's on watch. The sea is choppy and rough, and he's been here for hours. Even with the gloves, he can't feel anything in his fingers. Binoculars hang heavily around his neck, and as the minutes pass they grow heavier still. He'll never be able to move his neck again, he thinks. The guillotine, only slower. The spray falls on his face, works its clever way through his coat to his skin. He can no longer tell if it's cold. It could be warm. He doesn't remember what warmth feels like. He's never warm, not even off-duty. When his watch is over, he'll crawl into his narrow bunk, practically the size of a cupboard. He'll curl up against bare-metal walls and shiver until the numbness turns into sleep. Sometimes he has company, but he's still alone. The first mate's body is a sheet of ice against his back. The man never stays the night.

The dream shifts, and he's in Angola. It's always hot there, but he never is. He's cold. The heat doesn't touch him. The screams don't move him. The blood washes off. He doesn't feel any of it. If he had he would have died long ago. Sometimes he stares out across the savannah, his lonely shadow stretching along the flat plain, and he wonders what he would feel if his walls came down. He wonders what his hands would do without a rifle in them. He wonders when he forgot his own heart.

Bodie opens his eyes to a darkened room and knows why he dreamed all of it. It is, once again, night. He's twisted up on a settee with only a thin blanket shielding him from the world. Burrowing into the cushions hasn't saved him, even though he's trapped his freezing hands beneath him, his somnolent attempt to preserve the last shreds of heat. He's facing a large window that stretches almost from floor to ceiling, that ought to let in at least a small measure of light but instead radiates cold through the caulking at the seams. All he can see is white. It's a wet snow, falling more like rain than the cheerfully-drifting snowflakes of nostalgic imagination. The wind hisses and rattles, blowing sideways now, coating the windows with an opaque layer of powder. He can't see out. Where...?

Fragments of memory come back to him, mixing quickly with the dreams. It takes him a long time, staring at the snowy blankness, to work out which of them only happened in his head. He's in Doyle's flat. How? He sorts through his mind, arranges the scraps into a story.

The stakeout, hours of nothing and more nothing. Their relief, McCabe and Anson, finally showing up for the night. His eyes burning with fatigue. Driving slowly under clouded, darkening skies, grey with the oncoming storm. Standing on shaky, aching legs, on the pavement in front of Doyle's flat, bidding him good night. Turning to leave. The first snowflakes falling, sticking, slippery underfoot. Doyle laughing with snow melting in his hair, inviting him in. The snow continuing to fall. Doyle standing in the bedroom doorway, leaning against the door frame, looking at him with an expression he's too exhausted to decipher. Doyle sighing, turning, heading for his bed. His own breath, the only sound in the empty living room. Grabbing a blanket, curling up on the settee.

This is what brought Bodie here, cold and alone. It's not what he wants. It's never what he wanted. It's what he always gets. It's been almost too long now; he doesn't know what he wants any more. His life is the dead of midwinter. He's forgotten how it looks in spring, how it could ever look different. It seems impossible. Maybe spring will never come. Have there ever been flowers beyond this window? He can't remember.

He squeezes his eyes shut, tight, tighter, until patterns of colour begin to float across the dark field of his eyelids. A haze of red. Bluish lightning. There's nothing left. Tighter. It all goes green. His eyes hurt.

Unbidden, thoughts of his partner drift through his mind, and something knotted in his chest begins to loosen, work free. He sees how Doyle was looking at him, a scant few hours ago. The hope in his eyes. The sadness in his face as he turns away. The way his mouth always curves, the way he runs his tongue along that broken tooth. The smile that only belongs to him. How long has Doyle looked at him like that? Maybe it isn't too late after all.

Bodie swings upright and pushes himself to his feet. He doesn't know why he's doing this, he tells himself, beginning to construct the lie, slide it into the narrative of his life next to the other bad choices. No. He does know why he's doing this. He needs to live. He needs to be warm.

He pads silently upstairs into the bedroom, seeing the shape under the covers shift as Doyle awakens almost instantly at his presence. Whatever dream Doyle's been having is far better than his; he can tell this immediately from the satisfaction in the boneless sprawl. Doyle stretches lazily, languidly, and rolls over to stare at him. He thinks that's what Doyle's doing, at least. It's hard to see him in the dark. But it's not a surprised or startled move. He is expected.

"You understood," comes Doyle's voice, slowly, sleepily. Happily.

Bodie says nothing. He dares not. He doesn't trust himself to say the right words. He nods jerkily and keeps nodding. He thinks perhaps he is shivering.

"Cold out there, isn't it?" Doyle asks.

Bodie is still nodding. Doyle has no idea how cold it is.

The blanket slides off Doyle's shoulder, exposing bare skin, the shadow of a collarbone in the dimness, as Doyle moves his arm, holds out a hand. He can't see Doyle's face.

"It's warm with me."

Bodie has been waiting a long time for the invitation.

He steps forward. Doyle's hand, so much warmer than his, grips his fingers. He lets Doyle pull him down, slide the covers over him. He thinks at first, for one fleeting panicked moment, that was all Doyle meant, just the temperature. Then he feels hands tug at his shirt, unfasten his trousers, and he knows he was right.

He is naked, yet not exposed. Doyle wraps his own body around Bodie's, full of heat. He is revived. With every second he feels better, warmer, more human. With every second he _feels_.

Outside, the wind changes direction, and some of the snow blows away from the window. A beam of light meanders in. Doyle is propped up on one elbow, looking at him, wide-eyed. His eyes are so green. Grass green. Spring green. Doyle is smiling. It's time for the thaw. The ice is melting, and Bodie knows the shape of his own heart, locked underneath. How could he ever have forgotten?

He pulls Doyle to him, kisses him. It's not a sweet kiss, as kisses go, except in the feeling behind it. It's raw, messy, wet. He slides his tongue against Doyle's, between his teeth, feeling the broken tooth for himself as he's always secretly wanted to. Doyle laughs into his mouth and bites his lip, hard. It's the sort of kiss that gets your blood moving. It's the sort of kiss that makes you feel alive.

They pull back and look at each other. Doyle grins crookedly, knowingly, then kisses him on the nose, and Bodie laughs for the sheer joy of it. A song floats through his head, makes itself known, one of those Christmas carols. He probably heard it on the radio at the stakeout. It isn't until Doyle tilts his head at him curiously that Bodie realises he must be humming it as well as thinking it.

"O come all ye faithful?"

Bodie cannot possibly resist. "Haven't got there yet, mate. Working on it."

Doyle looks at him like he can't decide whether that was an act of purest blasphemy or an incredible turn-on, then laughs again and brings his hand to Bodie's face, smoothing a thumb along Bodie's eyebrow like that was on _his_ list of long-held desires.

Bodie kisses him on the lips, then slides down and kisses his throat. His chest. His stomach. The blankets are over Bodie's head now, and he thinks he might be sweating.

The planes of muscle under his mouth bunch, tense. Doyle's hardly stupid. He knows what Bodie's up to.

"You don't have to do that." It's an observation. Doyle isn't forbidding him anything. His voice is low and breathless already.

He kisses Doyle's hipbone. "Tell me you want me to."

It isn't, strictly speaking, necessary -- if Doyle didn't want him to, Bodie wouldn't be here, and they both know it -- but Bodie very much wants to hear him say it. He's never claimed to be noble. Far from it.

"I want you to," Doyle breathes, and then repeats most of it, "I want you." Hearing his partner say the words is ten thousand times better than Bodie could have been imagining, in the fantasies he hasn't let himself have.

He licks Doyle's hip again, mostly because it's there, then trails his tongue along warm skin and kisses Doyle's cock. After that, Doyle doesn't say much in the way of actual words. Which is not to say that he isn't vocal. Doyle sighs happily as Bodie licks along the length of him a few times to start, getting the lay of the land, as it were. Bodie only just takes him into his mouth before Doyle moans something wordless and thrusts up. Doyle's enthusiasm is gratifying in a way that makes Bodie strongly consider rubbing up against him and joining him in this wild abandon; his own cock twitches in empathy. This is definitely one of his better ideas. Why didn't he think of it long ago?

Bodie wraps a spit-slick hand around the base of Doyle's cock, to go where his mouth can't quite reach, and he strokes him. Doyle's hips hitch forward, and he groans something that could be Bodie's name, or it could be nothing at all. Bodie breathes heat, in and out, through his nose. Everything smells like Doyle -- real Doyle, not any of the horrible aftershave he likes to wear. Smells nice. Bodie thinks this is a good sign.

The damn song is still in his head. If Doyle notices that Bodie's mouth and hand have a particular rhythm to them, he hasn't said anything. Course, he doesn't seem to be capable of saying much. Bodie squeezes harder, slides his tongue in a deliberate, even tempo. Doyle's panting half-vocalised things now, somewhere between heavy breaths and light moans. Louder now, as Bodie moves faster, tighter. It's one of the best sounds Bodie can remember hearing. He'll have to remember it for later. God, Doyle's warm. Everything's warm. Finally.

His free hand is stroking aimless patterns along Doyle's side; he's aware of a sudden pressure, Doyle's fingers encircling his wrist, hard. A warning. Bodie's always suspected Doyle of being the considerate type. He ignores the warning, sucks harder. Doyle gasps once, a ridiculously quiet sound compared to the rest of the noise he's been making, and he comes, still holding Bodie's hand.

Swallowing isn't something Bodie usually does, or is even called upon to do. The sort of men Bodie usually has it off with aren't the sort he likes enough to want them coming in his mouth in the first place. Until now. He likes Doyle. Loves him. Is loving him. So he swallows. It's not as bad as he remembers. Might be because he's doing it for Doyle -- he can tell just how much he likes it, from the surprised happiness in Doyle's moans and the tautness of Doyle's grip on his hand. He'll do anything for him. Anything. Kill for him. Die for him.

He puts his head back down on Doyle's stomach until his partner's breaths slow to something approaching normal. The hand around his wrist tugs him upward until finally he's out from under the covers and Doyle is smiling at him, eyes wide and amazed.

"You really didn't need to do that either, mate," Doyle says, sounding almost astonished, like he'd never expected it to be something Bodie would want to do. Maybe he's been sleeping with the same calibre of people Bodie has.

Bodie shrugs and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "Wanted to."

"Come here," Doyle says, and Bodie discovers that his partner is not only the sort of bloke who wants to kiss him at all, he's the sort of bloke who wants to kiss him after he's swallowed. In Bodie's world, this is doubly unprecedented. Clearly he's been having meaningless sex with all the wrong men. Time to try meaningful sex with the right one.

Doyle's mouth twitches as they break apart, and he runs his tongue around the edge of his lips in an almost thoughtful manner. "You taste like me."

Bodie laughs. "I can't imagine why."

"So," Doyle asks, with the look in his eye that says he knows exactly how clever he thinks he's being, "what can I do you for?" It's the usual joke, but the way he says it leaves Bodie in no doubt of exactly what he's offering to "do."

Bodie grins, then thinks about it. "You can't fuck me." He makes his voice sad -- it is, after all, something he does enjoy, and he's sure Doyle would make it good for him -- and waits to see what Doyle says in response.

It's a statement of impossibility rather than denial; Doyle can't right now, no matter how much Bodie wants it. He is deliberately crude. He wants his partner to know what kind of man he's taken to his bed -- the kind of man who would say these things, do these things. Maybe Doyle thinks that Bodie's straight, or wants to call himself so, that he's someone who'd never get fucked. It could be true, for all Doyle knows, even though it isn't.

He's forgotten already just how well Doyle knows him, even though they've never done this before, never even talked about it.

Doyle nods slowly, and his tone is not one of horror, but rather one of a practical sort of disappointment. "Should have told me earlier. Maybe in the morning, eh?"

The morning. Now there's a new thought. Bodie smiles. "Maybe." Nothing he wants will faze Doyle. Good to know. And they might get everything they want. He has only to know what that is.

"In the meantime," Doyle starts, then pauses to bring a hand to his lips. His tongue flicks wetly along his fingertips -- index, middle, ring -- and he sucks one finger between his teeth, his eyes fixed on Bodie's. Bodie watches, fascinated and very, very aroused. God, his mouth. And Doyle's not even touching him yet. "I've never had any complaints about my fingers, if you'd like to go that route."

"Mmm," Bodie says, hypnotised. He can't focus on anything other than Doyle's mouth, and he knows Doyle knows it. "Long fingers."

Doyle looks strangely modest for a second, then slides to the edge of the bed and sits up. Bodie hears the contents of the bedside table shifting about. A pause, and then he holds up a container Bodie can't quite see in the dark. "I hear it's more fun with something more slippery." Probably Vaseline.

Bodie raises an eyebrow even though he knows Doyle can't see him. "You _hear_?"

"I may have some hands-on experience," Doyle says evasively.

Bodie snorts, half at the evasion and half at "hands-on." "I recommend 'in,' mate."

"Christ, and here I've been doing it wrong all this time."

While Doyle slicks up his fingers and pretends to have an epiphany, Bodie laughs, rolls onto his side, and kisses the parts of Doyle he can reach, which turns out to be mostly Doyle's lower back. In the dark he feels himself smiling.

Doyle turns around and kisses him back. Bodie can feel a bit of awkward tension in his muscles -- he's probably trying to hold his hands away and not smear Vaseline over absolutely everything he owns. But Bodie doesn't have to wash the sheets. He wraps his arms around Doyle and pulls him down to the bed, on top of him. His weight is comforting. Laughing, Doyle leaves petroleum handprints on his shoulders.

"How do you want me?" he whispers in Doyle's ear.

He never thought of the question as ambiguous, but Doyle pushes up to look at him and smiles a smile he's never seen before. "On your back. With all of my heart."

Bodie's face is growing warm, and he hopes Doyle can't see it. He knows Doyle loves him, of course. They've always loved each other, under all the jokes and the names and the insults, even if they've never loved each other quite like this. He doesn't know what to say.

"Ah, well, that's all right, then," he manages, only able to say the least part of what he feels. Doyle smiles at him and _knows_. Bodie doesn't have to say the rest of it.

Doyle slides down his body to lie between his splayed legs, and Bodie swings his hips impatiently. The blanket has long since fallen off the bed, but Bodie's no longer cold. And this way he can watch him. Watch him do nothing but look, apparently, though even that is making him hard.

Doyle is practically studying him, with all the concentration he gives to high explosives. "Easy, sunshine," he says, and Bodie hisses at him through his teeth. "We've got plenty of time, haven't we?" Easy for him to say. He's already had his.

Does he want him to beg? He'll beg. "God, Ray, _please_," Bodie says, thrusting against air.

"All right." Doyle takes mercy on him.

As his hips come back down, Bodie feels something warm and slick under him, sliding against his arse. Not quite inside, but Christ, even like that it's already so good. Nerves he'd thought long-dormant light up with sensation, and Bodie groans and rocks helplessly against Doyle's fingertips, trying in vain to slide just _so_. Almost. Come on, come on, come on. Is the bloke trying to kill him?

He lifts his head with some effort to see Doyle, holding himself up with his unused hand, watching him like it's the most exciting thing he's ever seen.

Doyle has a half-smile on his face and is licking his lips. "D'you know what you look like?"

It's not one of those questions anyone asks because they seriously want an answer, but Bodie tries anyway. "Narked?"

Doyle chuckles at that. "Not what I was going to say."

His partner, closet sadist. Maybe he should have brought handcuffs. Bodie tries one last time to get Doyle's hand where he wants it, then relaxes, ceding the round. "Do you think you're funny?"

"Yes," Doyle says, then ducks his head, and Bodie feels two fingers finally, finally move into him as Doyle puts his mouth on his cock. Yes. This was worth waiting for, he thinks, and that's really the last thing he's capable of thinking, as Doyle's fingers slide deep inside him.

It's all so good. No matter how he moves. He thrusts forward into Doyle's mouth, into warm, slick heat, and he knows from the way Doyle's tongue curls over him that he's enjoying it as well, doing it not because he owes Bodie anything, but because he wants to. Knowing that makes it even better. He rocks back, and Doyle's fingers are exactly as good as he promised, stroking in exactly the right place, sending tingling sparks through him.

Bodie throws his head back against the pillow, closes his eyes, clutches at the sheets. He's dimly aware that he's making a lot of noise, that he groans every time Doyle's fingertips twitch, but he's beyond caring, beyond shame. There's only Doyle, surrounding him, and that's all he cares about, all he believes in.

He wants it to last forever. He never wants to stop feeling like this. Doyle's fingers push harder, suddenly, exactly where he needs them. So good. Doyle's tongue strokes across exactly the right spot. Pleasure rises, higher, higher, hotter.

"Ray," he groans, "I'm going to--"

He remembers too late, and there's no time for Doyle to do anything about it before he's coming hard, shaking, into Doyle's mouth, clenching around his fingers. Doyle is on him, in him, and everywhere he touches is full of life, heat, warmth, feeling. Doyle moves slowly, gently, taking him through every last moment.

Bodie opens his eyes as Doyle gingerly slides his fingers out of him and lifts his head. He watches the muscles of Doyle's throat work as he swallows the last of it. Not that he left him much of a choice.

"Sorry," Bodie says, his voice much more raw than he'd thought it would be. He must have been shouting. "I didn't--"

Doyle levers himself up and slides back up the bed, half on top of him. "I wanted to," he says, the same thing Bodie told him. "Do you kiss after?"

Given what they've done already, what they are to each other, the question is absurd. Bodie laughs. "I hate kissing. God, anything but that."

"You'll hate this, then," Doyle says, and their mouths meet. They taste like each other, salty with sweat and come. Bodie slides his tongue against Doyle's, between his teeth. Doyle licks his bottom lip. It's wonderful. He thinks Doyle might be smiling.

"That was bloody awful," Bodie says, laughing, delighted. "Never do that again."

Doyle hits him affectionately in the ribs with the arm he's got wrapped around Bodie's stomach. "Go to sleep, Bodie."

Bodie reaches out for the lost blanket, pulling it over them as Doyle puts his head down on Bodie's chest. Doyle's half-asleep already, mumbling inarticulate noises of happiness as Bodie runs his fingers through his curls, another item on the list of things he's always wanted to try.

It's still snowing outside, but it doesn't matter any more. He'll never be cold again.

***

Bodie awakens to daylight beyond his closed eyelids and the sensation that someone is watching him. He cracks one eye slowly and sees Doyle, head still on his chest, looking at him. Doyle smiles. Bodie never has liked mornings much, but he thinks he could get used to waking up to this.

Doyle pushes himself up and kisses him, morning breath and all. And he likes it. It must be love.

"What's the time?" he says, blearily, looking about. It's so bright outside.

Doyle's hands are soothing. "Nine," he says, sounding too cheerful for someone who can't have had more than four hours of sleep. Bodie might have called it obscenely cheerful, before last night, but then he remembers Doyle's mouth and hates to waste the word.

Bodie turns and pushes his face into the pillow. "Mmf."

He feels Doyle kiss the back of his neck. "Snow's all melted, sad to say."

He puts his head up, startled, sits up. That explains why it's so bright. It must have warmed up since sunrise. Looking out the window, he can't even tell that it snowed last night. There are only puddles. It could all have been a dream, except that he still has Doyle.

Doyle, who's humming something to himself. Bodie listens, and then grins. He's passed the song on.

"Are you joyful and triumphant?"

Doyle laughs. "I'd say so. How about you?"

Bodie considers it. "Yeah."

Doyle stands up and Bodie admires him, gloriously nude. Doyle knows he's looking and smiles at him before wrapping a robe around himself, tossing another one at Bodie. With windows like those downstairs, he probably doesn't want to give the neighbours a show.

"Can I get you anything?" Doyle asks, ever solicitous. "Tea, toast? My arse? Our shift's not until noon." He accompanies this last, unexpected offer with a shimmy of his hips that renders Bodie breathless. "Oh, wait, forgot, your arse too. If that's still on offer."

"Course," Bodie says, without even having to think about it. His stomach growls. "Think we'd better have food before the rest of it, though."

"Getting old, are we?" Doyle says, and he darts out and down the stairs before Bodie can grab him and prove otherwise.

He hears the sound of running water, Doyle putting the kettle on, as he lumbers to his feet and shrugs on the robe. In the bathroom, Bodie stares at the array of hair products, a monument to Doyle's vanity, before grinning and stealing Doyle's toothbrush. He's fairly certain his partner won't begrudge him that.

By the time he comes downstairs, the kettle is boiling, and he snags one of the pieces of hot buttered toast from the plate while waiting for the tea to steep. They stand in the kitchen and smile idiotically at each other, crunching their breakfast. Bodie points to imaginary toast crumbs on his lip just so he can watch Doyle's tongue again.

Bodie toasts more bread. Doyle puts sugar in both mugs and milk in Bodie's. As he's pouring the milk, he looks up and meets Bodie's eyes. Bodie smiles at him, enthralled, and then laughs as Doyle's hand shakes and far too much milk ends up in his tea.

It doesn't taste half-bad, he thinks as he sips it. It's warm.

Then Doyle looks at him, looks over at the settee, looks back at him, and gives him a grin that's definitely conspiratorial, a question and an invitation all at once. After that, Bodie doesn't really care about the tea. Doyle's still humming at him, joyfully, then moaning joyfully, and much later he says nothing at all. Bodie considers it a triumph. Maybe this winter won't be that bad.


End file.
